Emergency fund just for pets?

[Urchina]

We had a medical crisis with our beloved (otherwise healthy if senior) lab over the weekend. Just her emergency care and diagnostic testing ran up a multi-thousand dollar bill. There's more to come, I'm sure, since it sounds like treatments exist for each of the potential diagnoses that are reasonably likely to work. This is good news, though she is still seriously ill.

Happily, we have an emergency fund for emergencies. We used a good chunk of it, and I realized that having a separate emergency fund for pet emergencies might help protect the main stash.

I realize that money is fungible. Having said that, the bucket mentality works well for me. When we calculated our minimum emergency fund, I clearly didn't take into account modern veterinary medicine. We need to re-evaluate the amount in the fund.

If you have pets, do you have a separate fund for them? If so, would you mind sharing how much is in it?

 

[Whisper66]

Many pets over the years. Never had a separate fund for them. They just got treated as needed with our general funds just like the rest of our family. Most were fairly inexpensive from the medical perspective. One exception was one that needed eye surgery and expensive f/u meds. We paid it from general funds and enjoyed our time with her. Fortunately we were never in a financial position that required us to prioritize pet treatments vs family needs so this was never a big issue for us.

 

[FI by 2024]

I have a separate pet fund, but it is not strictly an emergency fund. When I first got my dog, I added $100/mo to this bucket. Once I reached ~$1000 surplus in the bucket, I reduced it to $75/mo. From this bucket I spend ~$35/mo for food, $16/mo for flea/tick/heartworm, toys/treats (amount varies), and day care/boarding (amount varies). At $75/mo, I am increasing the fund by just a few dollars a month, but as it stands I have about $1100 in there for emergencies. My dog is still young, so barring an accident I have years to go before I would expect truly high medical bills. At my next raise the amount I contribute is going up to $80/mo to add a little more to the fund.

 

[growerVon]

We don't have a pet-specific emergency fund, however after two very expensive knee surgeries for our first dog DW and I started carrying pet insurance to protect against catastrophic vet bills. We have a plan that covers 90% of non-preventative, after the deductible. Many years the insurance pays for itself, as the lab work & meds costs are so high. One year one of our dogs had a multi-day stay with two blood transfusions... the insurance was a big help. We're paying 104/mo for our 6yr Auss Shep mix & two outdoor cats.

 

[ziggy29]

Not separate, but one of the contingencies required of our primary emergency fund. "The dog needs surgery" is just another emergency like "the A/C just gave out" or "the car needs a new transmission" or "the house needs a new roof", at least within the context of our financial planning.

 

[REWahoo]

Not separate, but one of the contingencies required of our primary emergency fund. "The dog needs surgery" is just another emergency like "the A/C just gave out" or "the car needs a new transmission" or "the house needs a new roof", at least within the context of our financial planning.

+1

Trying to budget individually for every possible unexpected financial hit isn't practical, at least not for me. See my sig line.

 

[MichaelB]

Not separate, but one of the contingencies required of our primary emergency fund. "The dog needs surgery" is just another emergency like "the A/C just gave out" or "the car needs a new transmission" or "the house needs a new roof", at least within the context of our financial planning.

+2

 

[RunningBum]

No separate fund. If I kept a separate bucket for every emergency I could reasonably think of, I probably couldn't have retired. Many of them probably won't happen, or will be spread way out in time.

 

[Senator]

I would be tempted to look for a cheaper vet and make decisions before something happens as to what you would do in any situation.

I have had many pet 'emergencies'. ACL replacements, liver issues with biopsy's, blood transfusions, cancer, etc. All incidents were under $1,000 each and with different dogs.

Often, the vet can make a decision as to whether or not it is worthwhile doing extensive medical care for a dog very early in the process.

Often, when the dogs are the oldest, you have the most issues. It may not be worthwhile jeopardizing your own retirement due to a geriatric dog that has at most a few months left to live.

One-time fixes to correct an accident is one thing, extensive medical care at the dogs natural end-of-life is another.

 

[audreyh1]

As someone pointed out, you need to have an allocation in your budget for pet expenses, and this should include additional set aside for the occasional extra expense.

Beyond that, a general emergency fund would cover unexpected pet expenses too.

You can think of your entire budget as a set of buckets. No reason to separate pet expenses from the "main stash". Why would it not be considered part of the "main stash"? Sound more like your expenses are higher than expected and you need to adjust your anticipated budget.

 

[travelover]

My pet is self insured.

 

[REWahoo]

My pet is self insured.

Medicat?

 

[ERD50]

... I realize that money is fungible. ...

Actually, I don't think you do, or the answer would be apparent (as in the responses).

-ERD50

 

[ziggy29]

As someone pointed out, you need to have an allocation in your budget for pet expenses, and this should include additional set aside for the occasional extra expense.

Beyond that, a general emergency fund would cover unexpected pet expenses too.

Agreed. The cost of food, routine vet care, medicines like flea and heartworm treatments as well as any other recurring prescription meds are part of a "pet expenses" budget. But anything expensive and beyond the normal recurring "pet expenses" would be something an emergency fund picks up.

 

[ziggy29]

Often, when the dogs are the oldest, you have the most issues. It may not be worthwhile jeopardizing your own retirement due to a geriatric dog that has at most a few months left to live.

One-time fixes to correct an accident is one thing, extensive medical care at the dogs natural end-of-life is another.

True. If your dog is 14, blind, badly arthritic and the quality of life is already borderline and declining, you may not want to spend even $500 on treatment to prolong its life (and in reality, might not even do that to the dog if the services were donated), whereas one might be willing to spend thousands on (say) an otherwise healthy 3-year-old dog that was injured in an accident where the prognosis for recovery and a long, healthy life is very good.

 

[akck]

We set up a pet medical fund when the insurance we had on them was about to double in cost. So, instead of paying insurance premiums, we transferred the premium cost into another account each month. When the funds got to a certain level, the excess was available for other uses (the account also holds our vacation funds). Last year, our GSD needed a few teeth pulled and now we need to replenish the account, but there were enough funds to cover all of the bill.


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[DrRoy]

I have had a dog almost all of my life, but I do not have a separate fund. It is just one of the many emergencies that can come up. I have looked at pet insurance a few times, but it has never seemed like right thing to do financially. You might check it out though.

 

[SumDay]

My employer offers pet insurance as a benefit (they pay ZERO - but we get a "deal". That's my bucket. Deductible is $250. I can cover that. Signed up last month, and used it for the first time today on the new pup.

I'm crazy for my pets, but at a certain age, as someone said above, I would not subject them to care I wouldn't want for myself at an equivalent age.

 

[Urchina]

Not separate, but one of the contingencies required of our primary emergency fund. "The dog needs surgery" is just another emergency like "the A/C just gave out" or "the car needs a new transmission" or "the house needs a new roof", at least within the context of our financial planning.

Yes. After a couple of days of reflection on this, I realize my real question lies more in the realm of figuring out how much extra "pet" money to put in the emergency fund. We'll use this weekend's vet bills as a place to start, and probably add whatever is left over from our monthly pet budget balance as we go.

+1

Trying to budget individually for every possible unexpected financial hit isn't practical, at least not for me. See my sig line.

True. However, this experience helped me realize that even my forseeable emergency expenses can still be surprising (we have multiple animals. This is the first time, however, that we've had vet bills we couldn't cash flow).

It may not be worthwhile jeopardizing your own retirement due to a geriatric dog that has at most a few months left to live.

One-time fixes to correct an accident is one thing, extensive medical care at the dogs natural end-of-life is another.

Concur. No discussion of jeopardizing our retirement here, hence the discussion of having an emergency fund to help cover these issues. As for the extent of medical care, one of the challenges we faced this weekend was understanding if this was an end-of-life issue or if it is a still-has-lots-of-life-issue. We didn't know which when we needed to make our medical decisions, and we won't know for a couple of weeks. Some things are easy to evaluate (inoperable cancer, for example, as we had with a previous cat). Others, as it turns out, not so much.

Sound more like your expenses are higher than expected and you need to adjust your anticipated budget.

Yes, this is the upshot of this experience.

Actually, I don't think you do, or the answer would be apparent (as in the responses).
-ERD50

Upon reflection, perhaps I should have written that I understand, on an intellectual level, that money is fungible. However, on a visceral level, I have worked in a more compartmentalized fashion because that helps me budget and allocate effectively. While this helps me organize my financial life and serves as routine basis for making decisions, it's not always useful.

One of the great benefits, to me, of this forum is that I can put my question forth and receive information about how other people do things. This post, for example, has given me more information about how other people budget and manage this aspect of emergency fund planning. These concrete examples and the rationale behind them are really useful to me.

I really appreciate the helpful posts and advice here. Clearly, we'll be adding a bigger chunk to our emergency fund to cover future unexpected vet bills. With any luck, we won't need them!

 

[Jack_Pine]

Not separate, but one of the contingencies required of our primary emergency fund. "The dog needs surgery" is just another emergency like "the A/C just gave out" or "the car needs a new transmission" or "the house needs a new roof", at least within the context of our financial planning.

This is pretty much our apprach as well.

BTW Urchina , best of luck with your pet. Hope thing turn out OK.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Our retirement plan is pretty conservative - no spending principal after age 62, so any extraordinary expenses just come out of principal / the kids' inheritance money. Or we could take the money from the annual travel or home upgrade categories, but we would probably just up our WR now and then instead for one time emergency expenses.

 

[youbet]

If you have pets, do you have a separate fund for them? If so, would you mind sharing how much is in it?

I don't understand why the pet fund needs to be "separate." Most of us keep some liquid reserves to cover unplanned contingencies, ie. "emergencies." Our personal lifestyles determine the categories we include in determining a total amount. In your case, you need to account for sudden and unplanned "pet expenses." No pets here right now since we've upped our traveling in retirement, so we don't need that category. But we have others and I'm sure some of those are different than yours........